Mr. George Osbaldeston 



died away in the Squire's breast, and on Lord George being 

 elected, he invited his old enemy to come and see the Danebury 

 horses, and ever after treated him with marked politeness. 



Long before this, Mr. Osbaldeston had set the seal on his 

 fame by the match against time at Newmarket, which has 

 since became historical. A discussion having arisen at dinner 

 one night as to the shortest time it would take a good horse- 

 man to ride two hundred miles, Osbaldeston, then forty-five, 

 offered to bet his friend General Charettie a thousand guineas 

 that, granted an unlimited supply of horses, he would do the 

 distance in ten hours ; and the wager being promptly accepted, 

 the match was fixed to take place at Newmarket on the 

 Saturday of the Houghton Meeting. 



The Squire's training at Ebberston consisted of riding sixty- 

 five miles each morning in two and a half hours, walking after 

 partridges the rest of the day to relieve his muscles ; and on 

 the 5th November, 1831, at eight o'clock in the morning, with 

 twenty-eight horses at his disposal, he started to ride the first 

 of fifty heats of four miles each on his own mare Emma. It 

 rained heavily for three hours, when it changed to a very cold 

 wind. The first four miles were done in nine minutes, and 

 the first hundred a trifle under four hours and twenty minutes, 

 after which Osbaldeston rested for a quarter of an hour, 

 refreshing himself the while with a cold partridge and a glass of 

 sherry at the Stand. In the end, the whole distance was com- 

 pleted in seven hours nineteen minutes four seconds. It was 

 calculated that one hour twenty minutes was spent in stoppages 

 to mount and dismount, so that in all it took the Squire eight 

 hours forty- two minutes to complete his task, which, though 

 considered an Herculean feat at the time, would be thought 

 nothing of nowadays. Mr. Osbaldeston, it was said, won two 

 thousand as the result, and his friend Gully a good deal more, 



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